O/T James McClean rfuses to wear poppy.

Courtesy of my A-level modern European history prospectus.

And I wasn't criticising anyone for it, I was saying I could see why McClean and Jordan don't wear poppies. What's twattish about that?

 

poppies should be worn by people who want to wear poppies.

poppies should not be worn by people who don't want to wear them.

freedom and freedom of choice and speech do not allow us to choose what other people decide.

judge not, lest ye be judged, as too many alleged christians the world over forget to remember.

 

X is right- forcing people to wear poppies is not the kind of freedom our soldiers would want. I probably wouldn't understand why somebody who saw themselves as British wouldn't wear one but again it's up to them.

 

I've got absolute respect for the ordinary men and women who often had no choice but to sacrifice their lives during our country's long history of warfare, but I don't wear the poppy.
My reason is that although it's meant to only signify our rememberance of them, there seems to also be a hidden endorsement and even glorification of the armed forces and theatres of war those dead people probably detested.

The armed forces have never regarded their fighting men as human beings or individuals and if a conventional war broke out tomorrow most of the people on this forum would become nothing more than pawns in a General's chess game.
If the forces and all uniforms were banned from rememberance day so that we were left to think only about the human victims it would be a step in the right direction.

 

You all had an argument about politics without me? Pricks!!!!

 

So what qualification have you got in European history from 1818 to 1945? You're so ****ing superior about everything and if anyone DARE have a different opinion you resort to mocking. It's really quite pathetic to be honest.

 

After American entry into the war, the Roosevelt Administration took up the futile cause of pressuring de Valera to open the Irish ports to Allied shipping. At a meeting in Washington with Vice-President Wallace and other US Government leaders in May 1943, Churchill inquired whether the newly-envisioned United Nations would include countries that remained neutral during the war. The Prime Minister thought the promise of UN membership could be used as leverage to induce Ireland and other neutrals to declare for the Allies. ‘When the United Nations brought the guilty nations to the bar of justice,’ Churchill said ‘he could see little but an ineffective and inglorious role for Mr de Valera and others who might remain neutral to the end.’xlvi Ultimately, it was the Soviet Union that vetoed charter membership for Eire in the United Nations on the grounds that it had made no contribution to the war against Fascism.xlvii Cranborne’s warning proved correct.
Churchill and de Valera did not cross swords again directly until the end of the war. This was the occasion of Churchill’s Victory Broadcast on 13 May 1945. In the course of his remarks he made the following statement:

Owing to the action of Mr de Valera . . . the approaches which the Southern Irish ports and airfields could so easily have guarded were closed by the hostile aircraft and U-boats. This was indeed a deadly moment in our life, and it if had not been for the loyalty and friendship of Northern Ireland we should have been forced to come to close quarters with Mr. de Valera or perish for ever from the earth. However, with a restraint and a poise to which, I say, history will find few parallels, His Majesty’s Government never laid a violent hand upon them . . . and we left the de Valera government to frolic with the Germans and later with the Japanese representatives to their heart’s content.xlviii

I'm glad he didnt wear the poppy. The ****s not fit to wear it.

 

Alot of Irishmen died fughting for the British in WW1. A bit disrespectful for his own people.

 

To many posts to read them all but if he doesnt want to wear it he shouldnt have to.

 

Some weird idea of freedom:

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/man-held-burning-poppy-posting-055256777.html

 

My Dad never bought a Poppy and I never even noticed until a few years ago.

Apparently my Grandfather was a hard working poppy seller and fundraiser for the British Legion in Hull. However when he fell into hard times and faced eviction for not paying the rent, he was refused help. That was that.

I did not attend the local gathering of the good the bad and the ugly yesterday. To be honest by the time it gets around to the 11th hour 11/11 I have had a gut full. I have always found it hard to attend. But I took my children and then the Grand children. I dont enjoy the memories. I applaud the British Legion and thank them for being there, but the fact is the it would mean more if the player who wore the poppy shirts had paid for them, not the club. Its the players choice, thats how it is and thats how it should be. But what would be better all round would be a veterans day like they have in the USA.

 

From roughly 1919 to 1921 the British Army (including the Black and Tans) killed about 550 Irish Republicans and about 700 Irish civilians for the loss of over 700 of their own number. During the troubles in Northern Ireland another 3500 were killed. Both sides committed killings unlawfully.
Some Irish people will see the wearing of the poppy (with profits to the British Legion) as honouring not only the vast majority of decent soldiers (British and Irish) from the World Wars but also the killers of their countrymen.
If the critics of Mclean happened to be living in Ireland would they wear a symbol to remember the IRA from the war of Independance?
If they would, then they can rightly say they are a better man than McLean.

 

It's not like he needed to ask for a poppy on the shirt and just didn't, its the fact that every single shirt had a poppy on it ready for the players to wear and he personally asked for a shirt without a poppy on. If that is not disrespectful I don't know what is.

 

Being Irish, he mistakenly believed that the poppy would bring on his hayfever.

End of discussion.

 

is it really? what happened to freedom of conscience?

 

What happened to respecting the people who fought for this country and made the ultimate sacrifice to give us the freedom we have today? If there are ****s out there who don't realise that and don't have a slightest respect to wear a shirt that already have a poppy on it(he didn't have to even make the ****ing effort to buy one) then they should not be in this country, end of.

 

it appears that you have not bothered to read any of this thread except the title.